Welcome to teleology
The teleological argument is part of Aquinas’ five ways, his last way to be precise. Teleology looks at the world around us and attempt to use that as evidence for G/d’s existence. We realise we’ve been sketchy on the details of Aquinas and his Five Ways here, but it’s because we’ve already written plenty about it in our article on Cosmology and wish to avoid repetition.
What is teleology?
Let’s start off by looking at the name. Teleology is from the Greek word telos, meaning end or purpose. So, teleology is all about using the world around us as a proof for G/d’s existence.
Exempli Gratia
The sun rises and sets each day. Nobody tells it to... it just does.
Why does it do this? Why is there something rather than nothing?
The teleological argument is an argument from order and design to G/d as the explanation for this order and design.
Final way: teleology
| P1 | Things lacking intelligence, like trees, have a purpose. |
| P2 | These things can’t move towards their end without an intelligent being. |
| P3 | By analogy: an arrow cannot reach its target without a skilled archer. |
| C | Ergo, by analogy, there must be some intelligent being which
directs all unintelligent things to their end. Ex hoc dicemus Deus. (This is what we call G/d.) |
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Notice that a Reductio Ad Absurdum argument is not employed here, instead the analogy of the skilled archer is used. This tree knows when to shed its leaves, but it doesn’t have intelligence like you or I. G/d’s regularity makes it do this. |
Design qua purpose and design qua regularity
Behind all design in the universe there is regularity and purpose. Some things just don’t happen...
Exempli Gratia
Lori couldn’t just give birth in the next ten minutes because there’s
regularity in pregnancy. She’d have to get busy with someone to conceive
the child and then wait nine months... none of that could happen in
ten minutes!
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| Design qua purpose | Design qua regularity |
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It's William Paley time!
William Paley is probably teleology’s biggest advocate, putting forward a comparison of how the regularity of a watch compares to regularity in the world.
- Born and lived during the 18th century
- British philosopher and ethicist
- Graduate of Cambridge University
Willy's watch
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1. |
Walking along a beach, he comes across a stone and looks at it with indifference – it’s just a stone. |
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2. |
He then finds a watch on the beach, stopping to admire its many intricate parts. |
From this he infers that the watch must have a designer, it is so complex that there is no way those parts could have just assembled in the correct order like a stone could just appear on a beach. This relates to the world.
In premises
Let's break it down into premises...
| P1 | A watch has certain complex features and consists of supporting parts. |
| P2 | Anything exhibiting these features must have been designed. |
| P3 | Following from P1 and P2, the watch must have a more intelligent designer. |
| P4 | The universe is like the watch in that it too is complex, only on a more wondrous scale. |
| C | Therefore, the universe requires a more intelligent designer. This designer is G/d. |
Note that this requires a real leap of faith, from the universe requiring a designer to that designer being G/d.
Return of David Hume
You might remember him from his last appearance when he criticised Aquinas’ first and second ways. Now he’s back to do the same with the last.
- How is the universe regular?
It’s difficult to compare things like a polar bear and a tree. - Why is there just one designer?
Could easily be more than that, maybe even a pantheon of gods or (as Brian Davies points out) angels. - What about a trainee god?
- G/d is all powerful, all knowing and all good. And yet, evil exists. This is the inconsistent triad, the definition of G/d is incompatible in a world with evil.
- The inconsistent triad seems to point to an incompetent G/d.
- Why use the example of a watch?
A watch is a machine, and watches just whirr and do as they’re programmed to do. A better example would have been something living.
JS Mill joins in
All you need to know about John Stuart Mill (see right) in three easy-to-learn bullet points:
- British philosopher and influential liberal thinker
- 19th century
- Helped develop utilitarianism, the idea that the moral worth of an action can be judged on the overall happiness it creates.
Mill agreed with Hume, asking us to look towards the animal kingdom. He points out the brutality in which predator hunts prey and how deceptive animals can be; if those animals were human then they’d be taken to court!
Charles Darwin: It's all evolution!
Charles Darwin needs no introduction; he’s the guy that really helped
us work out where we came from when he published his book “Origin of
the Species”
- Natural selection, survival of the fittest and evolution were all proposed in this book.
- Universe and nature as they are now are a product of a long process of evolution, a process that’s still going even today.
- This renders the need for a designer null since the universe has just naturally evolved to this state.
Are we projecting our ideas onto the world to make it fit G/d in the same way we might try to see patterns in clouds?
Final thoughts
That’s Thomas Aquinas’ Quinque Viae done and dusted. In this document, we’ve looked at teleology, an argument from order and design to G/d as the explanation of this order and design.
Now it’s worth thinking about how this way links to the other ways.
If this has really piqued your interest, we recommend you check out Plato’s “De Natura Decourum”, which suggests that there is absolute evidence for design by the demiurge.
Footnotes
- Portrait of JS Mill - Image from Wikipedia (en). Used on Pisp.co.uk as it is public domain under EU law.
